Huntington Hartford
Huntington Hartford | |
---|---|
St. Paul's School | |
Alma mater | Harvard University |
Occupation(s) | Heir to the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company fortune, philanthropist and businessman |
Spouses | Mary Lee Epling
(m. 1931; div. 1939)Diane Brown
(m. 1962; div. 1970)Elaine Kay
(m. 1975; div. 1981) |
Children | 4 |
Parents |
|
Relatives |
|
George Huntington Hartford II (April 18, 1911 – May 19, 2008) was an American businessman, philanthropist, stage and film producer, and art collector. He was also heir to the
After his father's death in 1922, Hartford became one of the heirs to the estate left by his grandfather and namesake, George Huntington Hartford.[1] After graduating from Harvard University in 1934, he only briefly worked for A&P. For the rest of his life, Hartford focused on numerous other business and charitable enterprises.[2] He owned Paradise Island[3] in the Bahamas, and had numerous other business and real estate interests over his lifetime including the Oil Shale Corporation (TOSCO),[4] which he founded in 1955.
Hartford was once known as one of the world's richest people.[5][6] His final years were spent living in the Bahamas with his daughter, Juliet.[2]
Early life and education
Huntington Hartford was born in
After Hartford's birth, the family moved to Deal, New Jersey, a wealthy community on the Atlantic shore.[2] After Huntington's father died when he was 11, his mother moved the family to a mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, known as "Seaverge" next to Rough Point, the mansion owned by tobacco heiress Doris Duke. The family also lived on a 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) plantation in South Carolina called "Wando" as well as an apartment on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.[10]
After his father died in 1922, Hartford's mother sent him to
On 10 November 1936, he purchased the sailing ship
Career
In 1940, Hartford invested $100,000 (equivalent to approximately $2,174,822 in 2023[12]) to help start a newspaper, PM, with Marshall Field III and worked as a reporter for the publication. An avid sailor, he donated his yacht to the Coast Guard at the start of World War II. During the war he was commissioned in the Coast Guard and commanded the Army supply ship FS-179, commissioned in May 1944, in the Pacific Theater. Hartford twice accidentally ran the ship aground.[13]
After the war, he moved to Los Angeles and attempted to purchase
In the 1950s, Hartford purchased a penthouse duplex on the 13th and 14th floors of
Hartford owned Huntington Hartford Productions which produced several films including the
In 1955, Hartford founded the Oil Shale Corporation, later known as Tosco, and was its majority shareholder and chairman. Tosco was later acquired by
When his uncle George Ludlum Hartford died in 1957, the trust set up by the elder George Huntington Hartford was liquidated and Hartford inherited his portion of the estate. The Chicago Tribune estimated his wealth in 1969 as half a billion dollars.[16] In 1959, Mike Wallace introduced him on a television interview as being worth half a billion dollars.[17]
In 1959, Hartford bought Hog Island in the Bahamas, renaming it Paradise Island. He developed it over the next three years hoping to turn it into another Monte Carlo. One feature of his Ocean Club was a cloister built from the disassembled stones of a monastery that William Randolph Hearst had stored in a Florida warehouse.[14] In an interview with David Frost on British television, Hartford stated that the flag he created for Paradise Island was in the shape of a "P" and that he wanted to put it on the moon as a symbol of peace for the world.[18] Hartford was responsible for getting the gambling license for Paradise Island by hiring Sir Stafford Sands, a Bahamian lawyer.
In 1969, Hartford produced the Broadway show
Patronage of the arts
Hartford was a patron of the arts, building an artists colony above Los Angeles and later a gallery in New York City, and his opinions on the arts were equally strong. He criticized Abstract Expressionists, believing they had ushered in a great "ice age of art," freezing out the grand traditions of music, painting and sculpture; he described
To support the art that he enjoyed, Hartford built an artists' colony in Rustic Canyon, above the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. Buying more than 150 acres in 1948, he hired Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright) to adapt existing structures and design new ones. When it opened in 1951, it had more than a dozen cottages and a central dining room for distinguished artists, composers and craftspeople who won scholarships for one to six-month retreats.[20] For nearly 15 years, more than 400 colony artists generated international success with exhibitions, concerts, theater performances and Pulitzer Prizes; included among them were composers Ernst Toch, Norma Wendelburg, and Ruth Shaw Wylie, writer and activist Max Eastman, and painter Edward Hopper.[20]
Hartford also renovated and opened a theater which he renamed the
Hartford's taste for Los Angeles began to wane, however, after the
Art collection
Hartford owned an extensive art collection. In an interview by Edward R. Murrow on his show Person to Person he gave a tour of the collection at his Beekman Place apartment including Rembrandt's "Portrait of a man, half-length, with his arms akimbo", which sold at Christie's auction house in London on December 8, 2009, for $33 million, a world record for a Rembrandt.[23]
To house his extensive collection of 19th- and 20th-century art, Hartford built the Gallery of Modern Art Including the Huntington Hartford Collection
Hartford commissioned
Personal life
Hartford was married four times, all ending in divorce, and had five children. His mother intended Huntington to marry Doris Duke, but in April 1931, Huntington married Mary Lee Epling, the 18-year-old daughter of a dentist from Covington, Virginia. They divorced in 1939.[2] In 1938, Huntington had a son, Edward "Buzzy" Barton, with dancer Mary Barton.[25] Hartford supported the boy financially but refused to legally acknowledge him as his son. In 1967, Edward Barton died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.[26]
Huntington's second wife was
In 1962, Hartford married Diane Brown at Melody Farm in Mahwah, New Jersey. They had a daughter, Cynara Juliet, before divorcing in 1970. Five years later, he married Elaine Kay. They divorced in 1981.[29]
Later years and death
In February 2004, he and his daughter moved to Lyford Cay in the Bahamas.[30]
Hartford died at his home in Lyford Cay on May 19, 2008, at the age of 97. The cause of his death was not publicly released.[31][32] His remains are interred at Lakeview Memorial Gardens & Mausoleums in Nassau.
In popular culture
- Hartford was portrayed by John McMartin in the 2004 film Kinsey, directed by Bill Condon.
- Hartford's Ocean Club, situated on Paradise Island, was featured in two James Bond films: Thunderball, in 1965, and Casino Royale in 2006. His then-wife, Diane Brown, has a cameo in Thunderball as the woman James Bond (Sean Connery) briefly dances with at the "Kiss Kiss" Club in Nassau, and in Casino Royale as a card player at the Ocean Club.[citation needed]
References
- ISBN 978-0-8090-9543-8, p. 88
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Daniel (May 20, 2008). "Huntington Hartford, A&P Heir, Dies at 97". New York Times.
- ^ "The Rich: The Benefactor". Time. March 1962. Archived from the original on September 7, 2008.
- ^ "HARTFORD PLANNING OIL SHALE LAWSUIT". The New York Times. July 20, 1968.
- Time Magazine. Archived from the originalon May 27, 2008.
- Washington Post.
- ISBN 978-0-8090-9543-8.
- Time Magazine. November 13, 1950. Archived from the originalon December 7, 2006. Retrieved May 4, 2010.
- ^ "The Connoisseur". National Magazine Company. May 1, 1991 – via Google Books.
- ^ "Mrs. Astor and the Gilded Age". May 23, 2008. Retrieved December 26, 2011.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Villiers, Alan (1937). Cruise of the Conrad. Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 379.
- ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- ^ Lewis, Daniel (May 20, 2008). "Huntington Hartford, A. & P. Heir, Dies at 97". The New York Times.
- ^ Time Magazine. March 2, 1962. Archived from the originalon September 7, 2008. Retrieved May 4, 2010.
- ^ a b Campbell, Rob (November 8, 1995). "L.A. STORIES: Uncovering a History as Wild as the Canyon Itself". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
- ^ "Huntingon Hartford Is Really One of the Good Guys". The New York Times. March 9, 1969. Retrieved January 1, 2012.
- ^ "Mike Wallace interviews A&P Supermarket Heir Huntington Hartford". ABC. May 12, 1959. Archived from the original on December 21, 2021. Retrieved December 27, 2011.
- ^ "The David Frost Show". IMDb.
- ^ "Al Pacino biography". IMDb. Retrieved January 4, 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g Sam Watters, Colony in Pacific Palisades nurtured top artists in 1950s, 1960s, Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2009, accessed August 19, 2013.
- ^ "History of Our Theatre". Ricardo Montalbán Theatre. Archived from the original on March 5, 2017. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
- ^ "Ricardo Montalban Theater". Cinema Treasures. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
- ^ Kennedy, Maeve (September 18, 2009). "Rembrandt for sale". The Guardian. London. Retrieved May 4, 2010.
- ^ Rohauer, Raymond (1967). A 40th Anniversary Tribute to Rouben Mamoulian, 1927-1967. Gallery of Modern Art Including the Huntington Hartford Collection.
- ^ Melia, Michael (May 19, 2008). "A&P heir Huntington Hartford dies at age 97". usatoday.com. Retrieved November 14, 2014.
- ^ Andrews, Suzanna (December 2004). "Hostage of Fortune". vanityfair.com. p. 3. Retrieved November 14, 2014.
- ^ "The Life and Times of Huntington Hartford". glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com. Retrieved November 14, 2014.
- ^ "John Hartford, 57, enjoyed teaching music". newmilfordspectrum.com. April 20, 2011. Retrieved November 14, 2014.
- ISSN 0093-7673. Archived from the originalon January 10, 2011.
- ^ Andrews, Suzanna (December 2004). "Hostage of Fortune". vanityfair.com. p. 4. Retrieved November 14, 2014.
- ^ Bernstein, Adam (May 20, 2008). "Huntington Hartford II; A& P Heir Lost Millions On Cultural Investments". washingtonpost.com. Retrieved November 14, 2014.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 3, 2020.
External links
- Official website
- "Huntington Hartford wins race in his yacht, The Joseph Conrad, from Newport to Bermuda", Time, September 20, 1937
- New York Times archives on Huntington Hartford
- Time archives on Huntington Hartford[dead link]
- Article on wealthy eccentrics CNN Money
- "Huntington Hartford is really one of the good guys", "Chicago Tribune", March 9, 1969